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Newly-Created Smart Galleries not Showing Pics
JHDesign
Registered Users Posts: 13 Big grins
I at first thought this was an indexing problem (now I am not so sure) so there is also a similar posting to an existing thread about the indexing problem.
What I have been able to do, easily, in the past in order to privately share photo galleries with clients or friends:
Tag individual photos with keywords for indexing. Create a smart gallery based on this keyword and assign the gallery a password. Create a share group and choose the smart gallery to be in that share group. If I password-protect the share group, I assign it the same password as the smart gallery (which means in this case since my site is also locked down with a password, yes, they have to enter the assigned pw twice). This enables me to give a pw protected access to outside parties.
What is happening now:
For photos I loaded last week, I tried to do the above, expecting no snags. The keyword appears to be indexed as it shows up in my list of indexed keywords. I select the keyword to smartify my gallery and the smart gallery appears to populate and exist as a new gallery and all is well. I create my share group with no problem, setting the same password as assigned to the gallery--all as above, except now, this is what happens: visitor is able to access gallery with pw provided and all is fine except the photos are not actually there, only placeholders. Same number of photos, descriptions (if exist), and orientation of the photos all there but broken link icons where photo should be (red "x" for IE, broken doc icon for Chrome.)
What I tried:
1. Not pw protecting share group or smart gallery. Didn't make a difference.
2. Doing the usual set-up again (smart gallery shared through a share group) with photos loaded and indexed months ago, using the same protocol as above (to make sure I wasn't going senile and had my procedure down) and everything works fine; all is visible to outside users.
What I tried again:
Deleted all test smart galleries and share groups associated with this specific cross-eyed odyssey and started over, again trying again to reference a smart gallery created from recently uploaded and indexed photos. Same result: smart gallery appears to populate while I am logged in as a smugmugger; no problem setting up the share group and assigning the gallery to it; no problem as a pretend 3rd party user accessing the link and submitting pw to gain access to site but no photos are there, only placeholders.
Why I think the Problem is Likely the Smart Gallery Run Amuck:
(not the photos themselves, pw-protection set-up, or even share group issues)
Process of elimination:
1. Can link to original photos
Used my same procedure above to link directly to the original gallery that contains the same photos (as well as others) that I had tried to keyword and separate out into a smart gallery. No problem at all setting up a pw-protected share group connection to these original-gallery photos directly. (BUT I don't want to do this since there are other photos in that gallery I DON'T want to share.)
2. Passwords aren't the problem
I also tried a non-password protected smart gallery w/ a non pw protected share group and the images are still hidden when accessed remotely (although signed in as my smugmug self, everything looks hunky dory). Photos still hidden from external link.
3. Sharegroup isn't the problem
I tried accessing the smart gallery directly, not through a share group and not pw-protected. Access possible but again, photos are hidden.
Old Smart Galleries Okay
External parties can still see/access all previously created pw-protected smart galleries, including one created as recently as September. I can also create new share groups that access and pull in these old smart galleries, so those are all still okay.
But newly created smart galleries, even after it appears that the keywords are fully indexed, are still hidden from external views--why?:huh
What I have been able to do, easily, in the past in order to privately share photo galleries with clients or friends:
Tag individual photos with keywords for indexing. Create a smart gallery based on this keyword and assign the gallery a password. Create a share group and choose the smart gallery to be in that share group. If I password-protect the share group, I assign it the same password as the smart gallery (which means in this case since my site is also locked down with a password, yes, they have to enter the assigned pw twice). This enables me to give a pw protected access to outside parties.
What is happening now:
For photos I loaded last week, I tried to do the above, expecting no snags. The keyword appears to be indexed as it shows up in my list of indexed keywords. I select the keyword to smartify my gallery and the smart gallery appears to populate and exist as a new gallery and all is well. I create my share group with no problem, setting the same password as assigned to the gallery--all as above, except now, this is what happens: visitor is able to access gallery with pw provided and all is fine except the photos are not actually there, only placeholders. Same number of photos, descriptions (if exist), and orientation of the photos all there but broken link icons where photo should be (red "x" for IE, broken doc icon for Chrome.)
What I tried:
1. Not pw protecting share group or smart gallery. Didn't make a difference.
2. Doing the usual set-up again (smart gallery shared through a share group) with photos loaded and indexed months ago, using the same protocol as above (to make sure I wasn't going senile and had my procedure down) and everything works fine; all is visible to outside users.
What I tried again:
Deleted all test smart galleries and share groups associated with this specific cross-eyed odyssey and started over, again trying again to reference a smart gallery created from recently uploaded and indexed photos. Same result: smart gallery appears to populate while I am logged in as a smugmugger; no problem setting up the share group and assigning the gallery to it; no problem as a pretend 3rd party user accessing the link and submitting pw to gain access to site but no photos are there, only placeholders.
Why I think the Problem is Likely the Smart Gallery Run Amuck:
(not the photos themselves, pw-protection set-up, or even share group issues)
Process of elimination:
1. Can link to original photos
Used my same procedure above to link directly to the original gallery that contains the same photos (as well as others) that I had tried to keyword and separate out into a smart gallery. No problem at all setting up a pw-protected share group connection to these original-gallery photos directly. (BUT I don't want to do this since there are other photos in that gallery I DON'T want to share.)
2. Passwords aren't the problem
I also tried a non-password protected smart gallery w/ a non pw protected share group and the images are still hidden when accessed remotely (although signed in as my smugmug self, everything looks hunky dory). Photos still hidden from external link.
3. Sharegroup isn't the problem
I tried accessing the smart gallery directly, not through a share group and not pw-protected. Access possible but again, photos are hidden.
Old Smart Galleries Okay
External parties can still see/access all previously created pw-protected smart galleries, including one created as recently as September. I can also create new share groups that access and pull in these old smart galleries, so those are all still okay.
But newly created smart galleries, even after it appears that the keywords are fully indexed, are still hidden from external views--why?:huh
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Also, I should have said, I am still using legacy sm.
I'm starting to get some of the tagged photos showing up in my smart galleries. Very slow.
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Thanks for the title change.
I'm curious if by this you mean what you see while you are logged in as a smugmug user, or what is seen when others log in remotely. Because when I'm in my smugmug world, everything seems fine--all the photos are populating my smart gallery just fine. But when I give out the link to the smart gallery for others to see (or I test this myself from another browser), the gallery is accessible but the photos are hidden.
I did the insanity above--reloaded the pics I want to share, afresh, into a new pw protected gallery and just gave the link directly to that. This solution has me happy for the moment because at least I was able to fulfill my promise and deliver the images. But this sort of solution isn't sustainable of course. The smart gallery that was giving me trouble is still doing it's hidden image thang, hours after all this began. I'm going to give it a day or two and report back whether or not the issue has resolved itself. I want the multiple hours back that I spent trying to figure this out, but for now I can brush my hands together and walk away to focus on other things!
Please see attached image. User can access gallery and descriptions but images are not displayed. I also experimented with unlisting the gallery (since I'd seen a bug mentioned with recently-created pw-protected galleries) and not pw protecting it and it doesn't make a difference (images still not there.) My whole site is pw-protected but I have no trouble giving pw protected access to individual newly-created galleries as long as they are NOT smart galleries. My previously-created smart galleries (also unlisted and pw protected) are still accessible.
Is this the slow-indexing problem, or not? Is this what it looks like? Because when I'm signed into Smugmug I can see my smart gallery populated with images and there is no hint of this issue until I try to create access for others to see it too. Can someone please advise?
Thank you.
I asked my questions through the help desk and was told I now must do something different, that I have never needed to do previously, in order for my unlisted pw-protected smart galleries to be seen by a guest link. I was told I must be sure to check "Yes" to the External Links question in Gallery Settings in the original gallery.
What wasn't explained to me is why this is now necessary when it never was, previously? (I always check that box "no" and have it checked "no" right now on galleries that are populating unlisted pw-protected smart galleries that are still happily viewable by guest links.) So without understanding the "whys" of this, for some reason the original gallery I created in October isn't the same sort of beasty really, as my old original galleries? Including one I set up as recently as September. Clear as mud.
I want to believe that after I have time to deal with the migration that all of my smart gallery issues will magically disappear but I'm finding myself feeling uneasy. I'm posting all this here in case there is someone else out there who has lost hours of work time (like me) trying to figure out a smart gallery access glitch.
The help desk got back with me and said the following:
"We do have an open bug being investigated for this behavior. The external links being enabled shouldn't be required, you are correct, but for now, it will help while we're digging into this. It's been difficult for us to track down, but we're working on it now and we hope to have a resolution soon."